Peavey Rockmaster

Hi it's Charles here and I am here to do another review of the Peavey Rockmaster pre-amp. As some of you may know I have 5 of these pre-amps now and you may think it is excessive, but I can assure you it is not. This is a great pre-amp and I can really easily dial in any sound I want. It is all analog with 4 12AX7s so that extra umphh God Golly Miss Molly tone. Great manual. My Peavey Rockmasters are stock aside from changing the occasional dead tube. I use Sovteks and Eurotubes.

Set up. You mean set-ups. I usually use my Peavey Rockmaster's straight into the mixer for recording or with my Peavey Classic 50/50 power-amp or as the front end section for one of my many combo amps.

For what it is and with the gain and tubes within it, it is not noisy but if you want you can always buy a noise gate that will do the trick.

I go for my own sounds but if I am playing covers I can go from David Bowie's Space Oddity to Ziggy Stardust and Smashing Pumpkins with a click of the footswitch.

Yes. I have never had one die on me yet. Long ago I had the pleasure of meeting the Harshmaster who had some bad luck due to internal relays.

Peavey as always is the best in the music business for Customer Service. They just are. Really friendly and knowledgeable staff. If I was an American, I'd see if I could get a job there.

In my opinion, the Peavey Rockmaster is the best analog guitar pre-amp out there. And I mean even for Acoustic Electric Guitar as well. I have lots of Peavey Gear from the 1990's and up as it truly is great sounding equipment.

I have started a new Peavey Rockmaster Discussion and Information Forum that some of you would find interesting:

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/peaveyrockmaster/

I got mine in near mint condition off ebay for $200 with the footswitch.

Couldn't be easier to use. All analog. No menu's, no editing patches. Three channels clean, rhythm, and ultra. Just twist the knobs and go. This is basically the preamp section to my Peavey Stereo Chorus 2X12 amp......and it sounds identical to it.

It has everything you need except a speaker emulator.

Again, if you like the Late eighties and early nineties Peavey sound, you'll love this unit. Rich creamy distortion and tons of gain.

I purchased this unit to record with. For recording, it's a totally different story. Direct to my Firepod recording interface, this unit sounded bad. I connected my Behringer 4x12 cab simulator and it changed everything..........sounded like heaven for recording. Any cab sim including the H&K Redbox will work as well. With a built in amp/cab simulator this would be the ultimate recording preamp.

One thing here, it does not do a scooped modern metal sound, but this pre-amp nails everything else.

Peavey equipment is some of the most solid stuff you can buy. Never had a problem with any piece of Peavey gear, ever.

Never needed them.

Been playing about 20 years. Owned just about ever piece of gear under the sun in that time. I own too much gear to list here. When I record I go guitar straight to rockmaster, to Apple Computer (via firewire interface) running Logic. I get all my effects from Logic. I really love this setup. My style is rock/newage......kind of a mix between Enya and Pink Floyd.

This has just replaced my Tech 21 Tri-OD for recording. The Ultra channel is much juicier sounding than the Tech 21, and the rhythm channel does a mild overdrive a million times better. If you are going to record with this unit a cab simulator is a must.

Haven't used this unit live, and don't plan to, but I'd love to hear what this sounds like through a good tube power amp and 4x12 cab.

If you can find one under $200 on ebay I highly recommend it. If Peavey ever comes out with a XXX preamp in a single rack unit I would probably replace this (I LOVE my XXX), otherwise this will be in my rack for a very long time.

This Peavey is easy to use. Has great tone but their are many problems with this preamp. The first one I had kept blowing tubes but I liked it enuff to buy another on. The next one I got work great for about two years and then it started the same things. I have been playing for about 18 years. I have electronics degree and could make repairs my self but I got a price of $225.00 to fix it. I repaired one and sold it. These are good tone but you have to be able to do repairs because they are crap. I have a Peavey XXX head that has never given me any problems. I have had it for 4 years now. I am sticking with my Peavey XXX head. You need a parametric EQ and noise gate but it blows the preamp out of the water. Stick with peaveys newer stuff.

Plug and play. 3ch tube pre. Gain bass mid treb and pres control om clean ch. Gain, vith push/pull for boost, and master on crunch and ultra ch. Shared 3band UTRA EFFECTIVE active eq with push/pull mid shift. Ive found that +/-2 db on bass/treble knobs is usualy enugh for me. When boosting mid, i use the "push" freq response and when cutting i pull the mid to get an other caracer on the mid band. WERY usefull. Thats what the less is more player neads. But the tone geeks out the probably would like seperate eq on crunch and ultra. That can be done. 5 fx loops. 1-2-3-4-5 fx loops. One for each channel, one fore the ODchannels together and one for all three. So go ahead and buy a 2X15 rack eq, use one ch for crunch and one for ultra, and tweak til you get blue.

Ch switching from footpedal. Or any rack relayswitching system, i use mesa midi matrix. Boost is only switchebal from frontpanel, unfortunally. But with schematic and layout in hand (google peavey rockmaster service manual and you find it too) I've found a way. Just waiting for for a new connector to arive. Al internal switching is RELAY, not fet so this is easy, and sounds mutch bether.

No master volume so any overal vol adjustment is hard if you dont have an easy availebal master vol on your poweramp or somewhere in your rack. For this its a 9.

Main guitar. Modified mex fat strat. Duncan "mini humbucker" in nec position with serie/splitt/paralell switch. 2'nd tonecontrol converted to vol for mid p.u.

Amps used: FXloop return on Vox ac30cc2 is my favorite for bright sounds.

Classic60 is also good for the fatter sounds but i dont have a cab that matches. Have tried with vox 2x12 and it sounds great for punchy fat sounds. And Mashall 1960 4X12 ROCKS with this settup. My Randall cheapo 4x12 is to bassy, muddy highs and loos lowend, for this combo, Hartke 4x10 i dont like, but i dont know why.

Marshall 9005. Les bottom, brighter, clearer higs. Sounds good troug Randall, but to sharp for me on vox and marshall. Nice cosy sound on Hartke.

guitar-->Ibanez blubber Wah on floor. --> midi matix--> stompbox fx in loops(whatever U like in front of amp)-->Rockmaster-->Midi matrix-->G-major-->amp.

Clean is.... Clean. The bright kind no the warm kind.

Crunch is my favorite channel. Ultra responsive to pickup, vol and tone changin on guitar, als vel as playing. Gain @ 6. P.U. selector, tona and vol control(s) on my guitar takes it from warm clean to ac/dc. Same setting but with boost engaged it goes from Blues to hard rock.

Ultra sings. Al the gain you'll ever nead, and than some. I recomend to turn gain down to under 5 if you'r going to use the boost switch.

Boost is not linear, it also changes frq response some. Crunch gets brighter, and ultra fatter and more bassy with it engaged.

The unit alone is not noisy at all. Hi gain settings amplifyes the noise from the rest of your signal chain from guitar-->inputt, oufcourse but what amp dont? My Midi Matrix actually itroduced some noise in my rig, but i'm not goin to blame that on the rockmaster.

I use this rig to play styles from Beatles-->Pantera. And it always deliver the basic tone i nead. I set EQ's flat and let the g-major eq do the final tone shaping. But that is just for convenience. The eq in the rockmaster is well tuned to get alot of sounds. Wil not do it all by it self, but goddamnclose.

It neads an good guitar, tubes, poweramp, and cab to shine. It also benefits from a good player. Its an honest preamp, it does what you tell it to do. It's realy good at exposing my sloppy playing and bad cabels. But its a good friend once you get to know it.

I give it a 9 becuse of the muddynes introduced when boosting the ultra channel.

Its oldschool american peavey. Ever tried to destroy Peavey gear from that period. I HAVE. As i like to modify and repear guitar gear on my spare time, i alvays have to open up every new pice f gear i get. When i was figuring out how to remote switch the boost i managed to put the pcb, solder side down on to the inside of the chassi, mains connected. I think i shorted every single solder joint, sparks flying everywhere. Changed the fuse and fired it up. And it stil works. Jakcs and pots nead looking after. Tubes nead changing every now and then. Do this and it should work fine. Any potensial problem i can think of must be lose solder joint on jacks, but that is easely fixed if it shoul happen.

Never delt with them. But manuals is free from their website, and they send schematics for a low fee.

I play mostly blues/rock/metal. it delivers perfectly for me.
Playin music for 17 years, guitar for 14. Everything from church to weddings, cover band and metall. Ive used the rockmaster for 4. Just out of an Pedalbord period. Used stombox straigt to amp for about a year. Pulled the old rack out of the closet some days ago, and finaly its fun to play again.

If stolen og lost id seartch every corner of the web to get an new one.

I love the sound, the fx-loops, the playability. Wish it had mastervolume.

Compared to a bunch of stomp dist's, mesa, marshall, fender, traynor, and digital amps. Marshal, mesa, bbe and digital preamps. It kicks *** on every single one of the sounds i want. But if you like marshall or Mesa sound. Buy Marshall og Mesa. I think its closer to Mesa than Marshall in sound.

It helps me make music, in the way that it makes me have fun playing again.

the rockmaser is a 3 channel preamp. i has all knobs for adjustment, and is all analog with 4 tubes. pretty much the front side of an amp.

i'm using this with a peavey v-type, with an emg 85. with the active it's dead silent. with a SD JB it's no more noisey than your typical high gain tube amp. i run into the rockmaster into a line 6 tone port for recording and go direct in and only use the speaker sims and chorus and delay. honestly this is the best sound ive gotten for recording. it really sounds like a live amp recorded. plenty o dynamics. and not at all sterile sounding. with the active eq you can really get alot of sounds from this pre. it really excells at the hot rodded marshall sounds of the 80's, but the mids can be scooped out to get a nice modern sound as well. the eq has a dramatic effect on the sound and is very touchy. i've built tube amps from the ground up, and the rockmaster is very good at giving that tube dist. all 3 channels are useable but the dist. is where its at. i put jj's tubes in it and it really improved the overall tone. the jj's replaced the original peavey branded tubes so i'm sure they had plenty o use on them. but the tube change took me from hoo hum o wooo hooo!

well considering these haven't been made in about 10 years and mine is still kickin says something for it. peavey makes great stuff and you can count on it.

i bought this used through the bay. i emailed peavey to ask for he schematic for he preamp and the footswitch. it took a couple tries but they got it to me. REALLY impressive for a piece of gear thats been discontinued for about ten years.

i play anything from bb king to sepletura. and have been for more time han i care to admidt. this preamp is he best ive found overall versatility. the band thing is beyond me now, so i don'tt need to blow out the neighbors. this preamp sounds great through a power amp and recorded directly through the tone port. peavey could rake in some easy bux by re releasing this beast.

you have to really know it to get your sound out cause its real sensative.

otherwise easy to use. ive had it for at least 15 years

all channels are excellent, has kinda 90 rock sound, if you want to get some prog rock or modern kinda sound get ready to use a compressor and equalizer.

well, from my experience peavey makes very dependable stuff.
lately its been giving me trouble which is kinda long to describe so ill skip it, but for me, acceptable after 15 years, the main peavey technician in my country couldnt seem to solve it.

well, i live in israel so, i dont think that my opinion will represent the company, cause israel has little buying power in this area. i think. never the less, the technitian didnt fix it.

i like it, its good, excellent to own, you can gig with it not having to carry any amp, just find one at the venue and connect directly to its power amp, get your sound. to improve it i would add some equlization knobs frequancies like low mids hi mids and maybe another one lower from the bottom to get those basses.

I just bought this thing, in mint condition off E-bay for 200.00. It is worth every stinking penny. Doesn't get any easier. I've gone from old school when I started playing some 20 years ago, to new school through the 90's and now I'm back in old school. "Everything is relative"

WOW, thats all I can say. You techno idiots out there that have too much time on your hands to analize every Rockmaster nook and cranny need to get a life. Just play the dam thing and enjoy it, you know it rocks. It is simply awesome for clean, low noise tube sound, it blows my marshall away, really. With some stomp boxes/effects in the loops you can pretty much get any sound you want. Les Paul, jaxkson, Strat all sound great, humbuckers make this thing sizzle incerdibly.

Don't have alot of recent experience with Peavey, but have had no problems with this unit. Will procure a set of spare tubes to have on hand in case.

N/A

Rock and roll only, what else is there? I'm just at a loss for words. I'm diddling some van Heffer right now and it's bringing tears to my eyes, the sustain in ultra throug the right cab is incerdible. The only negatives I can think of is it doesn't have a beer tap or toilet paper dispenser, what where they thinking?. If you can get one of these do it, do it now. You will have nothing to complain about if you just enjoy playing.

This is a pretty straight forward guitar preamp. It has the usual volume/bass/mid/treble/presence on the clean channel. The crunch & ultra channels share the same bottom/body/edge tone controls, but have independent gain/master/boost controls.

The clean channel is rather flat & dull sounding. It has that thin, scooped peavey trademark clean sound that you simply cannot dial out with the tone controls. I have used several solid state & digital products that produce far better clean sounds.

The crunch & ultra channels should be considered one channel, because you cannot make them sound much different due to the shared eq. Your best bet is to optimize the tone controls for the crunch channel, and use the ultra channel as a lead boost. The overall character of the distortion is very aggressive in the upper mids. This is a very 80's sound. I have tried all different tubes: JJ ECC83S, Peavey Super 7's, NOS Sylvania, NOS RCA Black Plates, and NOS Telefunken long plates. The Telefunkens produced the smoothest sound, but the spikey midrange was still there no matter what tubes I tried. I also tried several different cabinets: Marshall 1960A with 75 watt Celestions, a pair of Bogner Ported 1x12 with V30s, and a Mesa 2x12 Recto cab. The Marshall proved to be the best gig & rehearsal cab. In any case, the Rockmaster's spikey qualities were still there.

The jacks & relays are notorious for going bad. I had problems with the jacks & one relay. Luckily there is a very good tech at the store where I purchased this unit from. He was able to clean the jacks and replace the relay for a reasonable price.

I think a lot of people buy these preamps and are initially blown away by the amount of gain it offers at such a low cost. However, after you use it for a while you soon realize that it's a one trick pony. Some people may like the hair metal sound it produces, but frankly I'm board with it after two years of trying to make due. I recently picked up a V-amp Pro cheap, and it is far more versatile. I can get the same level of intense gain from the V-amp, plus cool Fenderish clean sounds, excellent classic Marshall crunch, and some decent effects to boot.

Very easy !!!

Peavey Rock Master is a Tone Master !!!
You just got the right strong healthy true tube TONE!!!
not like the SansAmp PSA-1 (A big distortion pedal in rack)

The Peavey tubes are not bad, but there are some better tubes you can change.

!!! Peavey has the Tone !!!

I love it !!! and wanna get a backup !!!

clean channel is nice and shimmering.With active EQ on all channels,you can colour the tone however you please...I can get anything from Country tones to pop,to rock,to 70's metal,to blues,and lastly,to the BEST metal tones EVER. This preamp has been used from countless guys: Morse,Vandenberg,Norum,to name only a few,but I doubt that there's any of them that did not use this preamp at one time or another. I doubt this great preamp would disappoint ANYONE. The distortion has tonnes of gain if you want it,I find I dont use so much ,but it's there. It's also so QUIET,this is really a winning design from a company that has been making kick-ass amps all their life. Crunches and roars like a lion,with my Peavey power amp,there is just no contest..a sound so rich,so fat...it's a pleasure to play guitar when tone is so good and responsive. Try one of these preamps and you'll see...the ADA and others dont really stand a chance against this classic preamp.
Awesome tone.

packed with tubes and gain stages and effect loops...in 1 rack unit. 3 channels packed with tone and useful versatility

I have never had problems with ANY Peavey gear...everything they make is a quality product,and they sell it for a reasonable price. They are amongst the most skilled and honest companies,in my opinion

never needed it

I have been playing at least 14 years,so I have tried or owned quite a bit of amps...this preamp is a real classic. It makes me grin everytime I am using it. An all-time ace guitar preamp